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Assignment for final project

You’ll be writing a 10-page final project, double-spaced, for the end of the semester. For this assignment, you’ll need to choose a method from those listed below, and you’ll need to choose a focus, too, from the areas of race, gender, sexualities, disabilities, dialects, economic class or a subset of these. For methods, choose from:

Historical analysis
Content analysis (quantitative or qualitative)
Theme analysis
Semiotics or signs analysis
Linguistic analysis
Rhetorical analysis
Narrative interviewing
Oral history

First, you’ll need to find a corpus of mass media texts (ads, films, news stories, editorial cartoons, comics, TV shows, music), following protocols discussed in class for ensuring a consistent group of texts.

Next, you’ll conduct research to build a short review of literature, using at least 10 outside sources (no more than five may be from the internet). Be sure to include some theoretical work in this literature review, such as van Zoonen’s work on the politics of gazing or bell hooks’ work on stereotyping.

Devise a list of possible research questions for your corpus, after reading scholarly work about your topic. Once you’ve considered your texts and your lit review, you’ll decide on which method will be most useful for analyzing these texts and answering your potential research questions. To develop your methodology, finalize your research questions and write up a protocol for analyzing your data (be sure this method will expose findings that will be responsive to your research questions).

Report your data and synthesize these findings with your literature review, mixing your results with insights you have and with theories that you’ve studied. These insights will form the basis of your discussion/conclusions. All parts of your paper should be like pearls on a string—all parts should be the same as to their purpose. In other words, tie things together and be sure your methods match your research questions, which should match your lit review and your discussion.

For your works cited page, which should be page 11 or higher, you’ll need to use APA style, which will be discussed in class. There are also online resources for how to cite sources; be sure to use quote marks for all material quoted from sources other than your own brain. After indirect or directly quoted material, give the citations of where this information may be verified, by offering the author’s name, the year, and page number.

posted by jacqueline @ 3:52 PM

More resources to help with next two projects:

These online journals might help you with both the second and final assignments:

Sexuality and Culture
http://www.csulb.edu/~asc/journal.html

Journal of Magazines and New Media
http://aejmcmagazine.bsu.edu/journal/archive/archivedefault.html

Another helpful journal is called Sex Roles, available through UNT library's electronic resources.

And lastly, here are few more blog addresses:

heatherette82.blogspot.com
christina10483.blogspot.com

posted by jacqueline @ 9:59 AM

Class meetings set for October 17, 19, and 24

And here are two more student blogs:

heatherette.blogspot.com
rosamend.blogspot.com

See you Monday.

posted by jacqueline @ 7:12 PM

No class on Monday, Oct. 10

I have an appointment Monday, so no class. Bring your full-page magazine ads from one magazine, divided and tallied into categories of race and gender. We'll also be discussing race and gender in video games and sports broadcasts.

There was a small stack of papers at home, on my dining room table, that were missing when I returned your assignments on Monday, Oct. 3. So sorry to have missed passing them out; they belong to: Jake Bezner, Brandon Musselman, Sabeen Madni, Amanda Reed, Zack Austrew, Jessica Jordan. If you'd like your grade, just zip me an email.

posted by jacqueline @ 5:50 AM

Assignment No. 2

This assignment will build on the first, since you will be gathering texts to analyze (ads, web sites, magazine covers). It's due on Monday, Oct. 24.

For your content or theme analysis, you'll gather texts to analyze, by either counting and sorting images (in ads or on magazine covers) or by discerning patterns in media. So first, you'll build your own original research through content or theme analysis. Then, to write your critical analysis, you'll review research from our textbook that is similar to your own, by quoting sources and synthesizing scholarship in a related area. Next, you'll report the findings of your research. And you'll write a three-page paper, double-spaced, with a works cited page. Please attach a sample or two of the texts that you analyzed.

posted by jacqueline @ 7:24 PM